The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-05-28
LIEUT.. GREELY'S SURPRISE.
HE'S ALWAYS SPRINGING QUEER WEATH.
Err OR INVENTIONS ON THE PUBLIC.

| Exposing Dark secret OF the Lieutenants
Texas Life-Filling Telegraph Insulators
with Hornets and Turning on the Warm
| Weather Faucet-Angry Linemen.
suppose that Brig. Gen. and Chief
Signal Officer Adolphus Weather-pro-
phet Greedy thought he was very funny
when he sent that Lapland blizzard
over here Monday to put us all in a
congestve chill. If so, l would like to
inform him privately that his reputa
| ton as humorist in this town will get
a chronic case of mango if he infests
us with another joke of that kind. 1t
may be that the Generals meteorol ogy
got little widowed during the several
pleasant seasons he spent at the North
Pole, and that he thinks it Is the proper
caper TO give the country January
freezc-out in the midst of an April
thaw; or, perhaps, he contracted a lik-
ing for Esqulmaux climate, aud prefers
his balmy and ethereal spring trimmed
with unexpected and superiluous bursts
of blue-nosed weather, but / can tell
him that when the average Citizen-at-
work is pining for early flies and as
paragus, he doesn't enjoy stopping
around in wet feet or going with chat
tering teeth to premature grave.
Easter Sunday Gen. Greedy was all
right. He gave us clear, millinery
weather and plenty of it, and although
several dozen of our most beautiful
dudes were wilted by the heat, no one
ventured complaint. But after this
tropical touch, what did he mean by
sending out such measly, Virgins
bill of fare as this:
"For the middle Atlantic States, 6liz-
cards, cyclones, frost, SnoO, rain, hail,
sieet, t0iM local areas of Slush; rising,
falling or stationary barometer; mind
~ E., S. W., or calm"
Does he think that after giving us
sunburn and freckles, and getting us out
of ulsters and in the way of juleps and
other straw punishment, this is n nice
sort of thing to practise on a. long suffer-
ing community? Are we going to have
any sudden brigadiers swelling around
and trihng with our hottest rights in
this wanton and piratical mannerP Is
this his idea of fun, raising merry Cain
all over the country with his low-down
Manitoba episodes, when the humble
citizen wants to wear q blue necktie
and 60 fishing? The weather last
week was pretty good for bullfrogs but
that's the best that can be said Of IT.
hate TO tell tales out of school, but
If Gen. Greedy doesn't tone down his
IDEAS of spring little will narrate an
Incident of his brief career in Texas.
He came down there in November,
1875, to build telegraph line to San
Antonio from Fort Brown. He had an
nsulator which he and other experts
lad gotten up in Washington especial
y for this line. 1t consisted simply of
| well-lacquered sheet-iron cap over q
Try wood screw, and had the general
appearance of tomoto can on the end
If broomstick when in position.
Well, the line was built-400
niles of it-and for two weeks or a
month it worked like dream. Sud-
lenly warm weather came along, and
When warm weather strikes the lower
Rio Grande it takes hold for keeps.
The thermometer crawled up to 100, and
fter several weeks of this spell the line
'egan to get mysterious kinks in it.
There was trouble somewhere, aud
'lenty of it. The line wasn't down,
'ut 1t seemed to have lost its grip on
through messages. San Antonio had TO
10 its business with Fort Brown by re-
aging at Laredo. In few days Lare-
10 could only telegraph as far as Ring
old Barracks, south. or to Fort Clarke,
orth, and through messages from San
Intonio to Fort Brown had to stop off
hrce times en- route and take rest. At
he end Of a week the trouble was
1orse yet. Lieut.. Greely-he was
lain lieutenant then-sent couriers
'alloping up and down the whole cir
nit They couldn't find place where
be wire was down or In contact with
rees or anything. But they reported
omething queer with insulators.
lieut.. Greedy was wild with indignant
nrprise. The idea Of an 'insulator"
Ding wrong which had been concoct-
in Washington especially for Texasl